By Tim O'Shea

"This is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth."

- Morpheus, The Matrix

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True to the principles set forth in the chapter Doors of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything, I try to avoid newspapers and TV as much as possible, mainly because it's obvious that that is NOT what is going on in the world.

Global affairs are certainly much more complicated, multilayered, with a thousand more points of view than the ridiculous Media stories that focus on one or two extremely basic "facts," eschewing subtlety in favor of black and white.

Even so, I could not avoid watching CNN for a couple of hours on a recent Sunday. It was an interminable documentary supposedly to show what was going on in Afghanistan.

But all we saw were a few shoeless Afghanis riding their mules in the mountain wastelands of Afghanistan, armed with what had to be the oldest rifles known to man. And it went on and on and I'm thinking OK we have all these thousands of UN troops and all those ships and the most sophisticated war gear in history assembled somewhere in the vicinity of Afghanistan, for the invasion, right?

So, like where is the army? Where is the enemy? Why are we watching this endless footage about these ragged nomads, like they had something to do with blowing up the WTC or something. Or like they're our target, and killing them is going to solve everything.

So I guess we're supposed to believe what, that our real enemy the Taliban terrorists who set up 9/11 are hiding out in caves somewhere making calls on their cell phones to their colleagues on the east coast, directing the anthrax mailings. And bin Laden is like the fox of the hunt and just as soon as we find him, America will be vindicated.

And that's why we need all these troops, and it's going to take months to check out all the mountains, etc., right? It's getting vaguer by the day, but I guess that's pretty much the morning line.

And then it occurred to me to simply apply the principles from the Doors of Perception to this situation, and it came a little clearer into focus. OK so if this is the smokescreen, then what is it that's being covered up?

How are we being distracted? We're being distracted by what we see most of in the news. Just like always. Like Sherman McCoy in Bonfire of the Vanities, it's not about portraying the factual truth. It's about dinner. And these days dinner is served, and we're having war and anthrax.

And smallpox for dessert.

In the creation of public opinion on most subjects, there is always the underlying financial upside. Propaganda - Edward L. Bernays - spin control (Doors of Perception - a prerequisite to this chapter).

There's big money in the hysteria surrounding anthrax - big money for Bayer, producer of the dangerous antibiotic Cipro, and big money for Bioport the Saudi-owned holder of the exclusive contract to produce anthrax vaccine in the United States. Big money for new vaccines.

And bigger money in war.

Everybody's an Authority

The subject of anthrax has brought all sorts of experts with columns and websites out of the woodwork, lords of hearsay and unsubstantiated conspiracy and hallucination, many working for syndicated news services, exhibiting the full spectrum of wacky contentions:

• George W engineered WTC so that a war could boost the economy
  
• the drug companies are sending anthrax spores to mailrooms and Congress in order to create a demand for anthrax vaccine and antibiotics
  
• bin Laden indirectly owns the anthrax vaccine company
  
• the FBI knew about 9/11 beforehand but let it happen anyway

as well as some likely ones:

• a few people have died from inhaling anthrax spores
  
• someone is trying to terrorize the American people
  
• no one really knows what is going on

These days anyone can claim anything. Actually anyone can prove anything now - all they have to say is that their source is speaking "on condition of anonymity." What a ridiculous new device. Or else that they have such a great journalistic reputation that readers will believe them without references. When did all these tenured journalists become such primadonnas that they think people actually take their uncited, unsourced ruminations seriously?

Fortunately, most people buy newspapers for the sports and movie sections, being as sensitized to the daily war scores as they are to advertising.

The Oldest Profession

Crowd control. Media is the only business in the world that gets to pretend it isn't a business. They maintain this supercilious air of selfless dedication - of uncompromising responsibility for 'reporting the truth.' Please! Like there are no depths to which they wouldn't stoop to jangle just one more nerve ending from a story.

To serve their advertisers, media has one focus only: to keep readers in a perpetual state of fear and uncertainty so that they will be sure to tune in tomorrow or to buy tomorrow's paper to see if things got worse. And what kind of news sells most? Right - bad news. If it's bad today, it's gotta be worse tomorrow.

So if nothing bad enough really happened today, then the main story will seek to foster some unformed fear about what very likely might be happening soon that will be even worse than the actual bad stuff going on now. Generally they'll wreak the worst possible scenario from any given situation.

Leo Tolstoy nailed it over a century ago:

"All newspaper and journalistic activity is an intellectual brothel from which there is no retreat."

- Letter to Prince V. 1871

But we digress. For now let's consider the two new issues separately: anthrax and war.

With anthrax, what is the popular perception that has been crafted since October 2001? Well, let's see - some white powder has been mailed to a bunch of offices and some people have died from anthrax. Because they didn't get ahold of Cipro soon enough. And now we're all at risk because terrorists want to kill all Americans. And more outbreaks are likely soon. And that to be on the safe side, we should take Cipro 'just in case.' And maybe the vaccine, if we can find any.

In this chapter we will hold a little different standard from the popular press by asking, what can really be verified about what is going on lately with anthrax? We will leave paranoic theorizing to the journalists - servants to the commandment that the primary goal of media is to perpetuate fear and uncertainty from one day to the next.

Anthrax the Disease

Let's start from the beginning. What is anthrax? According the most recent Merck Manual, a standard medical text, anthrax is a

"highly infectious disease of animals, especially ruminants, transmitted to humans by contact with animals or their products."

- Merck p 1157

It is infectious, but not contagious. Causative agent: Bacillus anthracis - a gram positive anaerobic bacterium. Standard medical knowledge of the disease is sketchy. That's probably because anthrax is so rare. Until lately, there have only been 18 cases in the past century. (Associated Press, 8 Oct 01)

Although rare as a naturally occurring disease, anthrax has been intensely studied as a bioweapon since the 1940s. FDR set up a center for developing bioweapons at Camp Detrick, Maryland. The program was headed up by none other than George Merck, drug czar.

After years of experimentation with anthrax, a method for inducing spore encapsulation was invented. In this way anthrax the disease was crafted into anthrax the weapon. (Broad) And not by Islamic terrorists. We created anthrax the bioweapon. In Maryland.

In the 1950s, our scientists produced thousands of gallons of 'weaponized' anthrax. Operating out of Fort Detrick Maryland for two decades, a group of scientists led by Bill Patrick succeeded in:

• testing experimental anthrax on hundreds of soldiers and prisoners, with or without their consent

• killing some of their own workers in testing unknown germs

• spraying American cities like San Francisco, St Louis, and New York with
  experimental germs to monitor how they would spread (Cole, also Christopher)

• forcing the anthrax bacillus and smallpox virus to convert into spores,
  thus creating weapons that can be stored for decades

• aerosolizing germs so they could be sprayed

• developing an arsenal of germ agents, including anthrax and smallpox

These facts are referenced in Miller's new book Germs, and in several more legitimate sources. Although this book is generally a confused, overblown narrative of drug industry propaganda, written in that style of feigned omniscience that is customary with journalists writing about scientific issues they don't understand very well, it does point to some valuable sources.

The above listed facts did take place, and can be verified by collateral references. It is true that in 1969, for political reasons, Nixon officially brought the US bioweapons research program to a close. Although biological research went out of favor as far as lavish funding was concerned, up until the present time, we find out that stockpiles of anthrax that were supposed to be destroyed were not.

And also that the research went on, disguised as "defensive" in nature. What a big surprise. Gee, you mean the army and the CIA weren't up front with the public?

Even after the Biological Weapons Treaty was signed in 1972 by more than 100 nations, the US and Russia continued to develop and stockpile anthrax, and still do. (Germs p 63)

When engineered into a weapon, the anthrax bacillus is protected by spores which can exist in the soil or in animal products for decades.

According to the recent Merck Manual, there are 3 ways humans can get the disease

• skin
  
• eating infected meat
  
• inhaling spores (Woolsorter's Disease)

Funny thing is, in this medical text (Merck) the same paragraph says that inhaled anthrax is "often fatal" and "almost always fatal." Recent events have proven both wrong.

This is typical of medicine's approach to anthrax. Despite boatloads of ink used up on the topic of anthrax, 99% of it is from the popular press. Very little legitimate scientific research has been done about the cause and cure of anthrax, especially the biowarfare version.

Even from our "experts," estimates of how many spores are necessary to cause the disease vary so widely that it's obviously guesswork. Dr. Meryl Nass states that the infective dose for inhaled anthrax is "a million spores." Yet in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the estimate is between 8,000 and 50, 000. (Franz) Conclusion: we really have no idea.

Let's talk about the two supposed treatments for anthrax: antibiotics and the vaccine.

Anthrax Antibiotics

According to Merck, the following antibiotics have traditionally been the treatment of choice:

These are listed in order of preference, with the most harmful choices listed last. Now there are a couple of odd things here. First of all, notice that as of 1999, Cipro is not even on Merck's list for the inhaled version. It was a only fourth choice for the skin version. Reason: the prodigious amount of side effects listed on p 850 of the 2001 Physicians Desk Reference for Cipro:

Some of these can be fatal. Probably the only antibiotic more dangerous than Cipro is chloramphenicol, as any drug rep will tell you.

Therefore it seems odd that suddenly in September 2001 the media just upgraded Cipro to the #1 choice for anthrax. Why did they do that? Because Bayer, Cipro's manufacturer is a huge patron of media advertising? Not that the media would be swayed by financial concerns, of course not... Cipro sales are up 1000% since 9/11. (New York Times 21 Oct 01)

Remember Baycol, the killer cholesterol drug that was pulled off the market earlier this year after at least 32 people had died from it? (The Baycol Recall) That was Bayer. Remember IG Farben - the German drug giant under Hitler? ( Horowitz) That's also Bayer. A very classy company, always with the interests of human health first and foremost.

The other odd thing is that in the same PDR where the above side effects are catalogued, there's a whole list of bacteria that Cipro is supposed to be used for. But anthrax bacillus isn't one of them. And in fact all the ones listed are aerobic bacteria. Anthrax is anaerobic. Isn't that odd?

Now, Cipro was only recently put on the list for inhalation anthrax by the FDA, in Aug 2000. (Enserink)

Going back to the 1991 Gulf War, each soldier was given a 5 day supply of Cipro -- like that would do something. (Miller p 119) Since then, Cipro has stayed in the driver's seat with respect to military opinions on anthrax antibiotics. In typical military tunnel vision, the terrible side effects of Cipro are not even considered. Nor the fact that efficacy has never been determined for humans younger than 18. (PDR)

But it's only in the military that Cipro has been the preferred antibiotic for anthrax. Elsewhere it's always been penicillin and doxycycline. So why the fanfare over Cipro?

Many scientists are wondering the same thing lately. In the 26 Oct 01 edition of the journal Science, there's an article titled "Researchers question obsession with Cipro." The article calls Cipro a "drug manufacturer's heaven." Fort Detrick official CJ Peters remembers right before the Gulf War when he was deciding which antibiotic to give to soldiers for anthrax, the decision went to Cipro because of its limited success with test monkeys, and because Cipro was the newest antibiotic.

The reasoning there was that the Iraqis might have created a new strain of anthrax that was resistant to older antibiotics like penicillin. Just a hunch - no real evidence. But today, 10 years down the road, Peters says that newness has worn off and Cipro is no better than the other less harmful, less expensive antibiotics.

But whether it's Cipro or penicillin or doxycycline, the biggest deception by the unlettered press is that people are safe taking any antibiotics just on the suspicion that they might possibly have been exposed to anthrax. This is the conventional wisdom that has been created by a hundred media pieces per day. Such a perception is erroneous, unscientific, and extremely dangerous.

Antibiotic resistance is always the Demon to be feared in any mass campaign of preventive antibiotic administration. In The Post Antibiotic Age we learned that the discoverer of penicillin himself Alexander Fleming, warned against the creation of superbugs from the very beginning. That chapter should be reviewed to understand the issues of natural selection of superbugs.

Superbugs don't just happen naturally. Superbugs are created by indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Anthrax presents two particular dangers in this respect:

1. it's almost a brand new disease among humans and therefore at first will be very susceptible to standard old-fashioned antibiotics, like penicillin and doxycycline. This initial effectiveness may cause undue expectations of lasting success.

2. since the anthrax bacillus is encapsulated in a spore, it can remain in the lungs for weeks after being inhaled, without escaping that protective covering. During this time the subject would not react - no immune response, no inflammatory response. Now if a patient were known to be exposed to anthrax and prophylactic antibiotics were begun and continued for several weeks, see the danger?

As the millions of inhaled spores gradually come open a few thousand at a time, like time-release capsules, the same strain of anthrax would be exposed to the same antibiotic over a period of time.

This is a perfect textbook scenario to encourage slight mutation of the microbe in order to survive the everpresent never-changing antibiotic. The patient becomes a walking Petri dish, and this month's lab assignment is to evolve a superbug. Ideal set-up.

The current recommended duration of antibiotic therapy for inhalational or cutaneous anthrax is 60 days. (Lane -- JAMA) The reason the course is so long is that spores may remain in the lungs for weeks before opening up. Actually the 60 days is just an estimate - we really don't know how long the spores can remain in the lungs.

This recommended dosage does seem to have been effective, however, because there have been no cases of anthrax among those who have taken the preventive doses of antibiotics in the offices in which anthrax exposure may have taken place. But the question remains regarding the advisability of creating unnecessary antibiotic resistance.

Would a life-threatening infection have taken hold in the absence of these antibiotics? In how many cases? With a 40% fatality rate, what is the wisdom of waiting till the disease manifests, weighed against creating antibiotic resistance? Nobody knows.

Remember - anthrax is a new disease. Antibiotics have their greatest effect when diseases first appear.

Many postal and government workers today are clamoring for 'protective' antibiotics. In all, over 30,000 people have taken prophylactic doses of antibiotics since 9/11, because of "possible" exposure to anthrax! (Lane) And because of the robotic media, there is an outcry for more millions of doses to be manufactured in case of outbreak of an bioterrorist attack. Yak yak yak.

There's a little problem with all these individuals taking antibiotics at this time. Most of them have not even been exposed to anthrax. So if they continue to take unnecessary antibiotics, what will happen to their immune systems? Several things:

1. they will destroy all their body's natural flora, primarily in the colon

2. by starting with the most dangerous antibiotics, the risk of side effects is much higher

3. in the unlikely even that they do inhale some anthrax spores, the above mentioned resistant mutations may be created by the constant antibiotics

In a few years or less, individual resistance to antibiotics will become species resistance. That's why so many people are resistant to penicillin today. The infectious agents have evolved; only the mutants survive. For some of these modern germs, penicillin is like a trip to Baskin-Robbins.

A University of Flagstaff study has already been looking for Cipro-resistant strains of anthrax. The chief researcher, Dr Paul Keim, says he has a paper "ready to go" at present but that he's holding onto it for now. Such altruism - actually puts national security before his own career. (Science, 26 Oct 01)

No matter what you read in the illiterate, pandering media, remember this fact: antibiotics have always had, and still have, only one proper application: the life-threatening infection. Not colds, not sniffles, not just-in-case anything. A life-threatening situation. Period.

Cipro is not the solution to disaster; it's the marketing of disaster.

What We Don't Know About Anthrax

At present 10 people have contracted inhalation anthrax and 4 have died. (Lane - JAMA) All were treated with antibiotics - a 40% mortality rate - making new inroads in our very sketchy knowledge of this disease:

"The fact that 6 of these patients have survived provides hope that the published mortality rates of 86% to 97% for inhalational anthrax may not be accurate in the year 2001.."

-- J Toxicol Clin Toxicol. 2001;39:85-100

With this relatively rare new disease, real life is ahead of research here. So just our current experience brings the mortality rate down to 40%. Now of course this wasn't a real clinical study and 10 people aren't a very large sample. But this is a vivid demonstration of the difference between scientific theory and reality.

Anthrax Vaccine

Anthrax vaccine was first developed by the US government at the Fort Detrick facility in the 1950s. (Miller, p 86) The US bioweapons program was at its peak at that time. At a facility in Lansing Michigan, millions of doses of anthrax vaccine were produced and stockpiled. The original vaccine testing at that time was done on monkeys. Results were inconclusive (Germs, p99)

Very quietly, anthrax vaccine was first licensed by the FDA in 1970 (Nass, Saga) even though it still was extremely "reactogenic." To apply for license approval, the Michigan company used the same untested vaccine developed by Merck in the 1950s.

Then in 1969, Nixon sought political currency by proposing a treaty to ban bioweapons research worldwide. The US stated by this treaty that it would never use biological weapons under any circumstances whatsoever. (Christopher in JAMA) Looked great in the papers for a few months but the bottom line was that everybody signed the treaty and then continued to store the old stockpiles of deadly germ weapons, and to quietly research new ones.

That's when George Bush ran the CIA, remember?

Before the Gulf War, anthrax vaccine held little interest. A 1985 review by the FDA concluded that:

""Immunization with this vaccine is indicated only for certain occupational groups with risk of uncontrollable or unavoidable exposure to the organism ... Inhalation anthrax occurred too infrequently to assess the protective effect of vaccine against this form of the disease."

- Nass, Saga

Then suddenly in 1988, the army wanted enough vaccine to inoculate all military personnel. The only licensed manufacturer of anthrax vaccine was still that state-owned facility in Lansing Michigan. The company promised it could produce enough vaccine in 5 years in cover all US military.

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